[QUOTE=Timthetaco;1033611]There's a reason there are high carb paleo dieters. They don't believe in the insulin hypothesis.[/QUOTE]
And they'd be right. Insulin is awesome. Without it, we all die. Insulin is my buddy, heavy toxins are my enemy. Diseases are caused by inflammation, and inflammation is caused by stress. Without stress there is no inflammation, and without inflammation there is no degenerative diet-related disease. The goal should be to keep stress low, and a diet that embraces all macronutrients from healthy sources - healthy fats, proteins and carbohydrates - is going to be the least stressful diet because it doesn't require secondary processes (like gluconeogenesis, ketosis, or forcing your body to create saturated fat and cholesterol out of grain carbohydrate) to get what it needs.

12-15-2012, 10:02 AM

Timthetaco

[QUOTE=otzi;1033615]If this is all not the case, what causes insulin resistance?[/QUOTE]

Overnutrition and lack of exercise. I've seen at least one study where insulin sensitivity was at least partially restored in Type 2 diabetics with a low calorie diet. It reduced both liver and pancreas fat.

Here it is, full study: [url=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3168743/]Reversal of type 2 diabetes: normalisation of beta cell function in association with decreased pancreas and liver triacylglycerol[/url]

Over time, as we continue to eat high carbohydrate diets and exercise less, the degree of insulin insensitivity increases. Unless we take dramatic steps to reduce carbohydrate intake and increase exercise, we develop several problems that only get worse over time – and the drugs don’t fix it.

Ready for this? Let’s go:

1) The levels of blood glucose stay higher longer because the glucose can’t make it into the muscle cells. This toxic glucose is like sludge in the bloodstream clogging arteries, binding with proteins to form harmful AGEs (advanced glycated end-products) and causing systemic inflammation. Some of this excess glucose contributes to a rise in triglycerides, increasing risk for heart disease.

2) More sugar gets stored as fat. Since the muscle cells are getting less glycogen (because they are resistant), and since insulin inhibits the fat-burning enzyme lipase, now you can’t even burn stored fat as easily. You continue to get fatter until eventually those fat cells become resistant themselves.

3) It just gets better. Levels of insulin stay higher longer because the pancreas thinks “if a little is not working, more would be better.” Wrong. Insulin is itself very toxic at high levels, causing, among many other maladies, plaque build-up in the arteries (which is why diabetics have so much heart disease) and increasing cellular proliferation in cancers.

4) Just as insulin resistance prevents sugar from entering muscle cells, it also prevents amino acids from entering. So now you can’t build or maintain your muscles. To make matters worse, other parts of your body think there’s not enough stored sugar in the cells, so they send signals to start to cannibalizing your precious muscle tissue to make more – you guessed it – sugar! You get fatter and you lose muscle. Woo hoo!

5) Your energy level drops, which makes you hungry for more carbohydrates and less willing to exercise. You actually crave more of the poison that is killing you.

6) When your liver becomes insulin resistant, it can’t convert thyroid hormone T4 into the T3, so you get those mysterious and stubborn “thyroid problems”, which further slow your metabolism.

7) You can develop neuropathies (nerve damage) and pain in the extremities, as the damage from the excess sugar destroys nerve tissue, and you can develop retinopathy and begin to lose your eyesight. Fun.

8) Eventually, the pancreas is so darn exhausted, it can’t produce any more insulin and you wind up having to inject insulin to stay alive. Lots of it, since you are resistant. Congratulations, you have graduated to insulin-dependent Type 2 diabetes.

[QUOTE=Timthetaco;1033596]Seems to be a bit of misunderstanding about the difference between a glucose spike and and insulin spike. Insulin is an all-around anabolic hormone; one of its functions is to get energy out of the blood and into tissues, including fat. It's necessary for the uptake of glucose [B]and[/B] the esterification of fatty acids. An [B][COLOR="#FF0000"]insulin spike[/COLOR][/B] is only a bad thing if you believe its only purpose is to punish you for eating carbohydrates.

Also, there's a difference between having highER circulating insulin levels from eating a higher carbohydrate diet and being full-blown hyperinsulinemic. The latter is a result of insulin resistance.

And I'm open to being corrected if I accidentally spout misinformation.[/QUOTE]

Not confused, just didn't read and inwardly digest the content b4 posting...oooppsss

12-15-2012, 10:11 AM

Timthetaco

[QUOTE=otzi;1033631]Over time, as we continue to eat high carbohydrate diets and exercise less, the degree of insulin insensitivity increases. [/QUOTE]

And there it is - the oft repeated assertion that insulin sensitivity simply "runs out." That's not supported in any scientific literature, and certainly not by any population studies. Where are the high carbohydrate hunter gatherers who eventually became insulin resistant because they never had enough meat to ease the pancreatic burden?

12-15-2012, 10:15 AM

otzi

The two main predictors of T2D are high FBG and high HbA1C, both measures of blood glucose, indicating not enough insulin is being secreted to clear the glucose or insulin resistance.

The usual 'remedies' for T2D are 'exercise and eat less'.

I was classified at pre-diabetic several years back. When I started exercising, it made me hungry for the whole-grain, low-fat diet I was prescribed by my CW doc. Only when I ditched almost all carbs and added fat did I see (very drastic) improvement.

So, maybe it has absolutely nothing to do with insulin--just the non-stop glucose ingestion.

There is no doubt in my mind that too much sugar is what caused my fatty liver, high trigs, and pre-diabetes diagnosis. I was a serious sugar-holic. And in my research for a cure, I came across Eades, et al, who say "A potato is a lump of sugar as far as the body is concerned"

12-15-2012, 10:16 AM

PureFunctionalFitness

[QUOTE=otzi;1033615]I've always followed the theory that we get fat because we become 'insulin sensitive', caused by flooding the body with insulin, which in turn makes cells resistant to insulin. The way to become insulin sensitive is to decrease carbs, which cause glucose spikes and bring on insulin spikes. So measuring blood glucose is kind of dumb...

If this is all not the case, what causes insulin resistance?[/QUOTE]

I don't think we should be jumping to all sorts or kneejerk conclusions here.

If anyone has some credible sources showing that continuous insulin spikes over many years from eating a high carb (processed carbs and in the SAD diet quantities) does not cause those insulin receptors to not hear the insulin signals, with all the issues of high blood sugar/lack of fat mobilisation from cells etc, please post it all here.

To me, the mechanism appears solid.

That does not mean that there is not a place for quality carbs as part of a real food diet, there is, but depending on goals etc, that needs to be carefully dialled in, not a free for all carb-fest

We WANT insulin sensitivity, to allow the cells to store and release glucose as needed to keep blood sugar in safe limits

12-15-2012, 10:20 AM

Timthetaco

The reason your fasting blood sugar and A1C improved with the high fat diet is because 1) the typical diet prescribed for diabetes is bullshit, and 2) you bypassed your glucose metabolism entirely. I had my diabetic father go on a ketogenic diet and his A1C dropped from 12 to 6. It wasn't because it restored his insulin sensitivity but because he wasn't eating any glucose that could sit around in the blood and cause damage.

[QUOTE=PureFunctionalFitness]If anyone has some credible sources showing that continuous insulin spikes over many years from eating a high carb (processed carbs and in the SAD diet quantities) does not cause those insulin receptors to not hear the insulin signals, with all the issues of high blood sugar/lack of fat mobilisation from cells etc, please post it all here.
[/QUOTE]

I'm not saying that grains and processed foods can't aggravate chronic disease in other ways, but read the study I linked above, or at least the discussion section. If you disagree about the cause of insulin resistance, it would have to be with what causes the increased adiposity in the organs to begin with.